Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day008.03
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20
Q. What is a vergasungsapparatein that context?
A. There are two paragraphs here of course. We know what was
going on at Riga and this is that there was a major
fumigation centre at Riga.
Q. No, please.
A. Well, you asked me the question; I gave you the answer.
. P-19
Q. I want to know what the German word "Vergasungsapparate"
means?
A. Literally, "gassing equipments". "Unterkunfte" means "rooms".
Q. Well, or huts or whatever, a place where you put people?
A. "Unterkunfte" means "rooms". So we have those two words
in conjunction.
Q. We do not know whether these are nice little rooms with a
view of the countryside?
A. I do not think so. I think that they built a 50 cubic
metre gassing chamber there for the clothing and this
comes out at the test trial. The documents and the test
trial make this quite plain.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but let us get back to the Brack methods
referred to on page 2 of that letter. You, as
I understand it, accept that is a reference back ----
A. Yes, indeed, but I think it would be ----
Q. --- "fergasungs"?
A. --- false to link these two matters because nobody has
ever suggested that the gas chambers, homicidal gas
chambers, were set up at Riga and that, frankly, my Lord,
is the bottom line.
Q. Whether or not they were set up, I just want to be clear
what your evidence is about what was meant by the Brach
methods of getting rid of these Jews.
A. Well, I think we established several paragraphs earlier
. P-20
that they used various methods to kill the euthanasia
victims.
Q. But including gas chambers?
A. They used carbon monoxide, gas chambers using carbon
monoxide. I do not think they ever used any kind of
chemicals apart from carbon monoxide from cylinders. They
used phenol injections. They used other lethal
injections.
MR RAMPTON: Could you then please turn, first of all ----
A. But I do emphasise once again that even the most
determined Holocaust historian has never suggested that
there was a homicidal gas chamber set up at Riga, which is
what this letter is about.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think Mr Rampton puts it forward as
evidence of the genesis of a policy ----
A. Right.
Q. --- of extermination by methods including gas, is that
right?
MR RAMPTON: It is, my Lord. My plain submission about this is
that it is very strong evidence of intention at a high
level to kill Jews by using gas. In the event, it is
perfectly right they that did not build a gas chamber.
They used trucks at this point. If we want to know what
actually happened, may we please go to Professor
Longerich's report, the second part, page 49?
A. I can only emphasise the fact that in the test trial, all
. P-21
this was exhaustively analysed, and the court accepted
that there was never any suggestion that gassing equipment
was used in Riga.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is accepted.
A. Yes.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: By Mr Rampton, I mean.
MR RAMPTON: In the sense that, yes, "unterkumfte" means
accommodations really, does it not?
A. Yes.
Q. It is always almost used in relation to people in German,
is it not?
A. Yes.
Q. Have you got that Longerich report?
A. Yes.
Q. At page 49 of the second part at the top of the page,
Dr Longerich sets out a translation of the significant
parts of the letter from Wetzel to Lohse which, as you
have noticed, is marked "Geheim". That is not the highest
security classification, is it, Geheim?
A. No.
Q. I will not read the first paragraph, but I will read the
second since we have not done that:
"The appropriate apparatus are not available in
the required quantity at present, and must first be
produced. As Brack is of the opinion that the production
of the apparatus would provide greater difficulties in the
. P-22
Reich than on-site, he considers it purposeful to send his
people to Riga. His chemist, Dr Kallmeyer, in particular,
will make all the necessary arrangements."
Then it is clearly indicated by Dr Longerich
that there is an ellipse. I can tell you that in the
original the next sentence begins at the bottom of the
first page of the letter.
"According to Sturmbannfuhrer Eichmann, camps
for Jews will be established in Riga and Minsk, into which
Jews from the area of the Altreich will also possibly be
brought. At the moment Jews are being evacuated from the
Altreich who will be brought to", there probably should be
an "o" on that "to" so that "brought too", in other words,
"as well as", "in so far as they are fit for work.
According to this state of affairs, there are no
reservations if those Jews who are incapable of work, are
eliminated by the Brackian means ... Those fit for work,
on the other hand, will be transported for labour in the
East".
The sense of that is, surely, this, is it not,
Mr Irving -- you can surely accept this -- that the
intention was -- what happened in the event is another
matter -- as expressed by Wetzel in Berlin in the Ostland
Ministry in Berlin, to bring train loads of Jews from the
Altreich to Riga and to send some of them that were fit
for work to the East and to gas the rest?
. P-23
A. That is a quantum leap which disregards the other
evidence. You are talking about the intention.
Q. I am.
A. In fact, it is not the intention. It is the proposal.
Q. Yes.
A. And I think that there is more than just a nuance between
those two words; just the same as somebody in Posnan,
I think it was Mr Hukner, in July 1941 wrote a letter to
Eichmann saying, would it not be far more humane if you
would dispose of these people before the winter comes by
some rapidly working means? Well, nobody did that at that
time. So these proposals were ventilated by these
gangsters.
Q. Rather than letting them starve to death, I think it was,
was it not?
A. I beg your pardon?
Q. I said it was rather than letting them starve to death was
the proposal.
A. Yes, and that is exactly the same kind of thing. These
proposals were ventilated and aired. As we find out,
nothing was ever done in that direction.
Q. You may or may not agree with Professor Longerich. If
you
disagree, there is nothing I can do about it. You
will
have to wait until he gets here. He says: "Gas
chambers
(here described as 'dwellings' (Unterkunfte) were not
in
fact erected in Riga. Rather, so-called gas vans were
to
. P-24
be employed"?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where do you get that from?
MR RAMPTON: I do not know; maybe it is in the next
sentence.
A. Well, oddly enough, I would agree with that.
Q. You would?
A. Yes.
Q. Well, there we are?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then we need not bother.
MR RAMPTON: I will just read on, if I may?
A. But I think it is irresponsible to talk about gas
chambers being described as "dwellings" in this. I
mean,
as we know ----
Q. You must take that up with him, I am afraid.
A. As we know, they did erect this very large fumigation
chamber in Riga which is why Dr Hesch went there in
October 1941.
Q. You would not describe a fumigation chamber as an
"unterkunfte", would you?
A. Well, we do not know exactly what shape this
fumigation
chamber took. They may have taken over a Nissan hut
and
turned it into a gassing chamber with the appropriate
sealants, and so on.
Q. No, no, the letter talks about the construction of the
required dwellings. That cannot be right, Mr Irving.
I
am sorry.
A. Well, Nissan huts constructed. I just gave that as a
kind
. P-25
of ready translation.
Q. They are not probably (and I am only dealing in
probabilities because I am interested in historical
integrity rather than proof of what happened) they are
not
likely, the words "dwellings which needs to be
constructed", to be fumigation chambers, are they,
given
the use of the German word "unterkunfte"?
A. Well, I gave precisely the reason why they are. Given
the
wartime circumstances, I find it highly likely they
would
have taken an existing building, like a Nissan hut,
applied the appropriate sealants and then used that as
a
fumigation chamber.
Q. What word would you naturally use in German for a
delousing or fumigation chamber?
A. Entlausungs kammer, Entwesungs kammer, Vergasungs
kammer.
Q. But not this word?
A. Well, they have actually done the two. They have said
Unterkunfte, Vergasungsapparate.
Q. Let us read paragraph 5, may we? "These gas vans were
developed by the Criminal Police in autumn 1941 -
parallel
to the transfer of the technology of 'euthanasia' to
Eastern Europe".
A. That, I venture to suggest, if I may just interrupt
you,
is why the letter had a Geheim rating rather than the
Top
Secret rating.
Q. Yes.
. P-26
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, I have read the next four or
five
paragraphs. What is really being said -- I think this
is
agreed which is why I am intervening -- is that the
policy
of using gas vans was not only proposed but was
implemented?
A. It was implemented, yes.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Eight or 10 of them were employed to kill
Jews, starting, as I read it, in Chelmo. Does one
need to
go through it more detail? Do you accept that, Mr
Irving?
A. Except for the numbers, I think that is right.
MR RAMPTON: I do have a point to make about this. If one
looks at paragraph 5, halfway through the paragraph:
"After having an execution of Jews performed for
his",
that is Himmler's, "observation, he demanded of Nebe,
the
Head of EG B, that other methods of killing should be
sought which were more 'humane' than execution", that
is
by shooting, that is my interpolation, "methods, that
is
which would put less strain on the firing squads of
the SS
and policemen". Is that correct? Is that what
Himmler
demanded of Nebe?
A. What a waffly footnote, though, is it not? This is
reconstructed from the accounts of witnesses and ----
Q. Do you agree ----
A. Excuse me, and he then actually uses the "indictment"
of
somebody as a source when an "indictment" is something
that has been untested in law. If it had been a
judgment
. P-27
by a court, that would be different.
Q. Mr Irving, you can, as I say, take up the cudgels with
Dr Longerich and Professor Browning and anybody else,
Professor Evans, about their methods, just as I am
doing
with you about yours.
A. Mr Rampton, you put the sentence to me and I
immediately
draw attention to the waffly basis.
Q. Mr Irving, I wish you would sometimes just listen to
my
question. Do you agree, as a matter of fact, with
what
Dr Longerich has there written?
A. That Himmler was squeamish?
Q. No, that Himmler was worried about the mental and
physical
effect on the troops, the SS people, of having to
shoot so
many people?
A. I have heard this said about the same kind of
evidentiary
foundation that Mr Browning has put in. Let me put it
the
other way round. There is no letter from Himmler to
Berger or to Bouhler or to Heydrich saying, "We have
to do
this some other way; this is putting too much strain
on my
men", but there is one episode which I clearly
remember --
I have mentioned it before -- when Hitler's film
cameraman
accompanied Himmler to a mass shooting outside Minsk
in
the middle of August 1941. Half way through that, one
of
the machine gunners came running across the field to
Himmler and to this party saying he could not do it,
his
nerves could not take it any more, could he be posted
. P-28
somewhere else? He was sent back into the line.

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